The middle finger

Whatever happened to the middle finger?

I feel like people don't use this digit in vulgar gestures as much as we used to.

My first encounter with "the finger" occurred when I was about 6 years old, sitting on my grandmother's lap on a Greyhound bus in San Francisco. I was sucking my thumb and, like most kids my age, found one of my fingers drawn to my nostril. Yes, I was a nose picker. I remember digging for gold and peering out of one of the bus's large windows. My eyes caught the eyes of a homeless man on the street. For reasons still unknown to me (perhaps it was the placement of one of my fingers in my nose? perhaps he felt animosty toward children?), this homeless man gave me a rather aggressive middle finger. I gazed at him, not knowing the exact meaning behind this man thrusting his finger up at me, but I did have a sense that it wasn't a happy hand signal, like a friendly wave, for example. To my surprise and without any hesitation, my then 70-something grandmother gave him the finger right back! Maybe she thought his vulgarity was directed toward her or maybe she felt that he deserved some distasteful feelings thrust back his way for flipping off a child. I'll never know but the memory still has a hold on me.

It's not exactly the middle finger that has the power to offend. It's the meaning and emotion behind the act of "giving" someone the finger.

How did a simple hand gesture turn into something so negative?

What is the psychology behind the middle finger?

And more importantly, has the use of the finger changed in recent years?

My curiosity is growing....